Labor VII

Abstract

The tradition of Heracles’ Cretan Bull Labor is reviewed, with attention to literary and iconographic sources, and the richest of the former supplied in quotation. After capturing the marauding fiery bull, Heracles rides it across the ocean back to Argos. As a fire-breather, the bull is aligned with others of Heracles’ Labor-animals, the Mares of Diomede and the Hydra, and also with the creatures faced by other quest-heroes, the fiery bulls of Colchis encountered by Jason, and the Lycian Chimaera encountered by Bellerophon. The tradition’s principal means of elaborating this Labor came via the bull’s identification with other great mythological bulls, namely those of Europa and Pasiphae, both variously associated with Crete, and also with the Marathonian bull captured by Theseus.